Page 15 of The Wedding Pact
So he followed August as she led him briskly back through to the balcony off the snug. She stepped out into the sunshine, pulling him after her, and closed the metal-rimmed glass doors behind them.
Outside the light flooded the balcony, the only shade coming from a few swaying branches of the large oak tree opposite. Here at the back of the house, they were looking down on a private, compact green park which Flynn guessed was for use by the residents. How he’d love to sit out there with a beer on a hot summer’s evening after his first week at his new job …
August leaned over the balcony, looking above and below as if checking for other sunshine-dwellers or open windows, but finding everything closed.
‘Are you … planning to push me off the balcony?’ he asked her.
She turned to Flynn and spoke in hushed tones. ‘What if I told you there was a way we could seriously increase our odds at renting this flat?’
‘We?’
‘Yes. We. We both want to live here, and you’d be looking for a flatmate anyway, right?’
‘And so would you.’
‘And so would I,’ she agreed. ‘I think we should move in together.’
‘August, this feels like a trap. What are you talking about?’ Flynn didn’t mean to sound annoyed; it was just the tiredness catching up with him, but he really needed to get back in there and get to work with whatever he needed to do to secure this as his new flat.
But to his surprise, August shook her head. ‘This isn’t a trap. I’m serious. I can’t get it on my own. I need to move in with you.’
‘Why?’ Flynn asked. ‘For all you know I could be a serial killer.’
‘Are you?’
‘No. But I’m sure Ted Bundy would have said the same thing if you’d asked him. In fact, I think he did. I could be a stranger who followed you into that coffee shop and mirrored everything you told me you were doing today.’
She paused. ‘Why are you trying to convince me you’re a murderer?’
‘Probably because I’m too polite to implyyoumight be one.’
‘I’m not, I swear.’ At that moment, she seemed to spot something out of the corner of her eye, somebody coming into the room behind the glass doors.
August laced her hand into Flynn’s again, swivelling him to face the small park, and rested a head against his upper arm. Flynn mused that to anybody looking at them from within the snug, they must be the picture-perfect image of a happy couple.
On the balcony, Flynn side-eyed this suddenly, strangely, tactile creature. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I will explain everything, just kiss my hair.’
‘What?’ he started to pull away and August smiled up at him, adoringly.
‘I’m really sorry about the shirt thing and all the stuff I said, but just act with me,’ she said through her gritted teeth. ‘Please. Trust me.’
Flynn sighed. ‘Um … ’ He leaned over and rested his cheek for a moment on her head in a way that he hoped was affectionate-looking. He didnotkiss her hair like she asked, because even that was one step too far into what-the-hell-was-going-on-here-ville for his liking. Nevertheless, he still felt her hair, soft against his face, the scent of banana and coconut drifting into his thoughts. Their hands entwined. ‘So what the hell is going on?’
‘This place is perfect, right?’ she said, her voice softening.
‘It is really nice – the best place I’ve seen so far this weekend.’
‘And we both want to live here. Me because it’s been a lifelong dream, you because your life has just turned upside down and you need somewhere to call home as soon as possible. Am I still right?’
‘You are … ’
‘We can’t afford to live here long term on our own, we’d have to get a flatmate.’
Flynn nodded. That certainly seemed likely. ‘So you think we should live, and apply, together?’
‘It makes perfect sense to me. I mean, you have no other friends in Bath.’
